Collection of games

Level: intermediate and advanced

Age: any

Group size: groups, individuals

Each group is given a card bearing a letter-pattern, the same on each, as in the example here. The players each write down on paper all the words they can think of containing some or all of these letters, provided that the middle letter appears in each one. No letter should be used more than once in any word. There is a time limit. The group with most words is the winner.

Sentence relay

Level: intermediate and advanced

Age: children

Group size: whole class

At a leader’s signal the first in each team runs to the board and writes a word, then back to his team, handing the chalk to the second player, who does likewise, and so on. The aim is to write a complete sentence, which must not come to an end until all the members of the team have written one word each. If a word is misspelt or illegible, it is rubbed out at once.

The words may be added either in front of or after what is already on the board.
The useful alphabet (self-initiated independent learning)

Aims: Speaking skill

Level: Beginner

Time: 5-10 minutes

Organisation: Individuals

Procedure: Each student gets a letter and has to find 5, 10 or 15 words she/he thinks would be useful for them. They then report to the class, perhaps as a mingle activity, using word cards (on one side they write the letter, on the other the information on the word - spelling, pronunciation, definition).
Chain Spelling (Shiri-tori)

Level: Easy to Medium

The teacher gives a word and asks a student to spell it, and then a second student should say a word beginning with the last letter of the word given. The game continues until someone makes a mistake, that is, to pronounce the word incorrectly, misspell it or come up with a word that has been said already, then he/she is out. The last one remaining in the game is the winner.

This game can be made difficult by limiting the words to a certain category, e.g.. food, tools, or nouns, verbs, etc.